Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Do no harm?
On Monday Christopher Hitchens was on the Simon Mayo show on Five Live. The interview can be downloaded here. His basic argument is that religion, far from being a force for good, is essentially the root of all evil in the world. I fundamentally disagree with him on this and other points, agree totally on others, but throughout it is a fascinating piece of radio.
Michael Shilliday @ 01:47 PM
Hmmm… I reckon authors promoting their latest books are responsible for all manner of timewasting nonsense!
On the actual debate, the evidence seems to show that there is evil in secular as well as religious states (consider Enver Hoxha’s Albania) - so it seems to me that you’d be better off blaming human nature than “religion” in general.
For the purposes of the debate, does intolerant fundamentalist atheism count as a religion?
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 01:59 PMVery few athiests start wars as opposed to religious fanatics.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 02:18 PMVery few athiests start wars as opposed to religious fanatics.
Except for, like, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, those weirdoes from the Shining Path in Peru, Ataturk, etc., etc.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 02:22 PMAtaturk didn’t start the war. He responded to the invasion of the western powers.
And we’re still fighting the wars of the Ottoman succession. History would indicate that that could go on for another few hundred years. Bah.Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 02:42 PMCheers for the link Michael.
I loved the distainful tone that Hitchens employed when speaking to the CofE Reverend. Clearly the Hitch has the tendency to over-simplify but he still makes a strong case. His description of how religious theology and psychology was present in the Soviet Union was especially convincing.
Sammy, is it certain that Hitler was an athiest?
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 02:50 PMAccording to fluff Hitler was far from an athiest, he was infact heavily into the occult and born a catholic IIRC.
Though I’ll concede on the Stalin point, however how many people died in the invasions of the Holy Lands? How many people now die in Israel and in Iraq all in the name of allah, yaweh, god or whatever sky pixie takes your fancy.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 04:38 PMHitchens has eternally endeared himself to me by dispensing a satisfyingly vicious posthumous beating to the late Jerry Falwell, the ridiculous American TV evangelist and so-called leader of the Religious Right, on the happy occasion of his death. I downloaded several appearances from different news programs from newshounds.us and it seems that Hitchens was the lone voice of dissent from uniformly toadying coverage of the life of this baleful influence on world politics.
So say what you like about him, and he annoys me frequently, but he fulfills a function.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 07:29 PMThe problem with the argument regarding the evil of religion is not merely the fact that it is falacious. Yes it is true that both religious and irreligious people commit dreadful acts. Incidentally Hitler had rejected his Roman Catholicism (he was confirmed to please his mother whom he did reputedly actually love). He was also disinterested by the biazzare pagan beliefs of Nazism except to regard himself as appionted by a non specific “providence”. It was actually Himmler who was really into the neo paganism (The book A Social History of the Third Reich, R. Gurnberger is a fairly good introduction to Nazi religious beliefs)
Leaving aside the falacy that religion is a force for evil or indeed all evil one should look at the intolerant immorality of the allegation.
Instead of saying religion is the source of all evil, try substituting Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Protestants, the British, the Irish, or anyone else for that matter. This shows not merely the error of the argument but also the intolerant biggotry of it. Because it says “religion” rather than a religion or a group of people is the problem it looks less biggoted. It is actually no different. If any of the above groups was singled out such books would probbaly not be published or if published would not recieve any positive attention.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 08:29 PMI simply think Christopher Hitchens is amusing to listen to, especially when debating with (and normally wiping the floor with) sanctimonious, superior, patronising God-botherers.
But, like most self-publicists, I don’t take him seriously either.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 09:08 PMHi Turgon
Hitler was a devout catholic who stated in Mein Kampf “I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s Work.”O.R.
What about Hitch on Falwell, “If they gave him an enema they could have buried him in a matchbox!”The guys a genius, even if he says so himself!
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 10:15 PMInteresting that a commentator in a country ravaged by fundamentalist religion “fundamentally disagrees” that religion is a force for evil.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 10:27 PMI seem to recall a country where a young teenage girl died because of a pregnancy she couldnt tell anyone about at a religious shrine - in the middle of that island. Of course, that sad lonely pitiful death wasn’t anything to do with religion.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 10:35 PMI Wonder: I suspect that has everything to do with “Religion”, and very little to do with Christianity. Religion is what happens when people get hold of (or don’t quite grasp) the faith which Christ summed up as “Love God with all your heart and mind and strength, and your neighbour as yourself”.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 10:57 PMIt’s a very good interview all the same, all very genial but tooth-and-nail all the same. Good to hear a bit of impassioned reason with the lid kept on.
The section on the interweaving of religion and culture is particularly good. Hitchens puts up a good defence though.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 10:57 PMToken Dissent: “His description of how religious theology and psychology was present in the Soviet Union was especially convincing.”
I found his attempt to shift blame for evil carried out by athiests onto religion both unconvincing, and rather dishonest.
He seems to use any evil done in the name of religion as evidence that that religion is evil, but when considering what is done by atheists, you’re only allowed to think about the “nice” atheists, presumably since the nasty ones like Stalin were using “religious” techniques (not simply manipulating people or anything) to help them carry out out their evil. Bit of a double standard, surely?
And his idea that forgiveness is immoral - or that the parents of a murder victim were simply grandstanding when they forgave their son’s murderer - that seemed repellent!
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 11:15 PMPaul
Despite your disavoyal, most people continue to have an addiction to their *religion* and ignore those places where the views they have, accepted by their religion, clash with Christ.Hence those who killed here on a Saturday night often took Communion on a Sunday morning…
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 11:21 PMIW: You’re right enough, I’m afraid. Religion, in that sense, seems more common than Christianity - even among Christians.
I suppose if you define religion as “that thing we humans do to perfectly good belief structures”, then you could say that religion is often harmful. But in that case you’re basically only saying that humans tend to do evil a lot of the time - which is not really the point Christopher Hitchens was trying to make.
Terry Pratchett makes a similar point in “Small Gods”, when Om considers some of his priests and prophets.
Posted by on Jun 20, 2007 @ 11:36 PMHitler publicly disavowed Christianity, he had many Christian pastors murdered, he chose as his badge the pagan symbol of a broken cross.
He also led a party called the German ‘Socialist’ Workers Party, his chief opponent, Stalin ruled the Union of ‘Socialist’ Soviet Republics, between them they manged to murder thirty or forty million people and lay waste an entire continent.
Add in the mega death tolls from other socialists like Mao, Pol Pot and their little socialist buddies in Viet Nam, Cuba, Laos, Burma, Peru, Romania, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia,(and countless other African nations), Nicaragua etc. well you end up with a butcher’s bill of well over a hundred million people murdered by socialist atheists.
So you tell me socialist atheists are accusing religious people of being evil? Projection, anyone?
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 12:43 AMSo Germany suddenly stopped being Christian in 1933 and then took it up again just as suddenly in 1945? Nonsense. Auschwitz and the Gulags are monuments to the failure of religion in general and Christianity in particular.
As Hitchens correctly points out the credulity and the irrationality promoted by faith and worship allowed canny manipulators of mass psychology and the then new media technology like Hitler and Goebbels to appeal to irrationality, to humanity’s bestial impulses, to gain power for themselves.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 02:12 AMSo Russia stopped being Christian in 1917 and took the mantle on again in 1989?
No, in both cases Christians still practised their religions to a more or less restricted degree but their governments labelled themselves “socialist” and were absolutely NOT Christian. Any attempt to label these atheistic socialist governments as monuments to the failure of Christianity rather than monuments to the failure of state imposed secular socialism is a complete fraud by atheistic socialists.
You want to beat organised religion over the head? Fine, the record ain’t perfect, but be prepared to take a hell of a lot of stick for the horrific and appalling record of atheistic socialism in both its hideous “national” and “international” varieties.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 02:54 AMOh, so it was the “government” operating the machine-guns at Babi Yar, the German people were still Christian, just practising their religion to a restricted degree. Just when I was trying to give up sarcasm.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 03:59 AM*Oh, so it was the “government” operating the machine-guns at Babi Yar, the German people were still Christian, just practising their religion to a restricted degree. Just when I was trying to give up sarcasm.*
Er, yes it was government agents, in this case soldiers and gestapo members acting on behalf of the German National Socialist government who slaughtered the victims of Babi Yar, they did so in the name of German National Socialism and not in the name of Christianity, is that a really difficult concept for you to grasp? I can’t see why because it seems rather obvious to me.
By your logic Russian Orthodox Christianity was the reasoning behind the Red terror and Buddhism was the motivating force behind the horrors of Pol Pot and Mao Tse Tung merely because some of their followers still practised religious thought as invariably many must still have done. To blame the mass murder on their individual religious beliefs is as illogical as to blame it on their opinion of broccolli or ballroom dancing.
Look it’s a very simple concept (and I appreciate decades of left wing indoctrination in schools and the media might have destroyed your ability to master critical, logical thought). Whatever about the crusades or the Spanish Inquisition (the excesses of which are largely exaggerated anyway) the biggest mass-murderers of the last century and probably of all time were the agents of various forms of anti-religious international and national socialism.
Many of these murderous international and national socialist agents may well have held private religious viewpoints but that does not change the fact that the atheistic socialism which enabled them to carry out their slaughter fervently and utterly rejected Christianity, Judaism and other established religions.
It’s really simple folks, atheistic International and National Socialists are far and away the biggest mass murders in history; they beat organised religions into the ha’penny place.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 05:59 AMAn ad hominem attack on my education level, ironically followed by a dismissal of my powers of logical reasoning. A bit grumpy no?
Have you considered the Islamic conquest of India? If body-counts are so persuasive my straw man beats your straw man by a length.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 08:35 AMMy indoctrinated education leads me to demand an explanation at this point for the “atheistic socialism” (surely atheist socialism would suffice)term which conflates Fascism and Communism so egregiously.
The Roman Catholic Church supported and promoted Fascism all through it’s existence, most notably in Italy and Spain where the Church still defends it, and was actively complicit with Ustashe death squads in the former Yugoslavia during the Second World War. Several clerical war criminals from that country were subsequently given refuge in Ireland subsequently, to my shame. National Socialism and Fascism and the Axis were not secular at all. The Japanese perpetrators of the Eastern Holocaust were actually led by a God - atheistic socialism my arse.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 09:03 AMActually I’ve always believed that people just slag off religion because it helps them to argue a well-worn point yet to avoid the real uncomfortable truth: it is actually culture and the diversity of same that is the cause of wars. religion is but a single facet of a society/community’s culture. it is so right-on and politically correct to celebrate the wonder of ‘culture’ and, as previously mentioned, ‘diversity’. Unfortunately there is already too much diversity in the world, obviously more than we are able to handle. Yet when people attack each other over religious differences, I often wonder if the truth is such that they don’t really care about the other person’s religioin, it’s the differing ‘cultural’ practices they can’t really abide. And in truth, how much cultural diversity is there or should there be? I mean, what is the difference between a sandwich, a tortilla and a kebab? Is a jewish wedding ceremony really that different from a hindu or a muslim or catholic one? Diversity me arse. It’s all just (very slightly) different versions of the same things that ordinary people all over the world do every day.
‘Culture’ has a lot to answer for, in my opinion.
Posted by on Jun 21, 2007 @ 11:03 AM
